


i'll always do my best to make you see

by elsaclack



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, WE GOT SOME ORIGINAL CHARACTERS HERE, YEAH SO BASICALLY, but then again neither are the characters from the show, it's all fanfic here, they are not at all of my own creation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 21:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: the merry misadventures of morrissey and schmidt





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [philthestone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/gifts).



> BIG OLD SHOUT OUT TO PHILTHESTONE FOR INITIALLY CONCEPTUALIZING AND THEN SHARING THESE CHARACTERS W ME UR THE REAL MVP

“Have you ever thought about the fact that our captain is married to an  _ actual NYPD legend _ ?” Daisy asks dreamily.

John glances up across their desks and smirks at his partner, who’s leaning back in her seat and absently tossing a rubber band ball from one hand to the other. Ever since Captain Santiago announced that her husband - Sergeant Jake Peralta - would be in the precinct during lunch hour, Daisy has been practically catatonic in her excitement. She gazes up at the ceiling thoughtfully (and, he realizes, she’s more still than she’s been all morning) and John returns to his report.

“Captain Santiago is a legend, too,” he says as he writes.

“Yeah, but not like  _ Peralta _ ,” Daisy says the name reverently and turns to fully face John. “I heard he once chased a perp into traffic on a broken ankle, got hit by a car, and  _ still  _ made the arrest.”

John rolls his eyes. “You and I both know that’s not accurate,” he says to his report.

“Could’ve been. I heard he went deep undercover with the Ianucci Crime Family for, like,  _ two years _ .”

“It was six months, Daisy.”

“ _ And _ he had to shoot four guys in the head while he was undercover!”

“That’s not even  _ close  _ to -”

“ _ Ugh _ , can’t you just let me be excited to meet my hero for five seconds without going all  _ Morrissey _ on me?”

John smirks. “Sorry. I forget he’s your role model.”

“Yeah, well, I forget you’re  _ basically  _ Captain Santiago’s stalker.”

“She’s an  _ incredible  _ detective, Schmidt, and we’re  _ lucky  _ to have her as a resource and leader -”

Daisy’s got that stupid antagonizing grin on her face and John feels his frustration mounting quickly. He drops his pen, sharp comment ready to roll right off his tongue, but before he can get it out the air is pierced by the shrill voice of a small child.

Daisy whips around just as John cranes in his seat toward the source of the noise. A little girl with bouncing brown curls and a Star Wars t-shirt bounds into the bullpen, eyes wide and wandering as she takes in her surroundings. John rises out of his seat as Daisy quickly approaches the little girl, crouching down to get on eye-level.

“What’s your name?” Daisy asks, her voice gentle and warm.

“Maya,” the little girl says bashfully.

“Peanut?” A man in a leather jacket with a child’s backpack slung over his shoulder appears, looking slightly frazzled. Daisy straightens as Maya whips around and hurries toward him to hide behind his leg. “What’d we say about running out in front of dad?” He asks the top of her head patiently.

“To not.” Maya says in a small voice.

Maya’s dad shoots Daisy an apologetic smile. “She gets really excited when she sees cop uniforms,” he explains as he twists around to grab Maya’s hand.

“Oh, no worries. Is there anything I can help you with today?” Daisy asks in her professional dealing-with-a-citizen voice.

“Nope! I’m good. We know exactly where we're going.”

John furrows his brow as Daisy tilts her head to the side curiously. “Are you -”

Captain Santiago’s office door opens behind them and Maya shrieks “ _ MOMMY _ !” and darts around her father’s leg.

John turns numbly and watches Captain Santiago’s face soften as she kneels to hug her daughter. Her daughter. Which means the man with the tousled hair and the child-sized _Star Wars_ backpack over his shoulder is -

“Have you had a super fun day with Dad?”

“I drew a picture of Grandpa Ray!”

“You  _ did _ ?”

Sergeant Jake Peralta nods politely to Daisy, a broad smile already splitting his face, and moves to stand closer to his family. “She did,” he confirms when Captain Santiago glances up at him.

“Well, I can’t  _ wait  _ to see it.” Captain Santiago hoists the little girl up on her hip and reaches toward Sergeant Peralta to squeeze his upper arm in greeting. John catches a soft smile flash across Sergeant Peralta’s face in response. “Team,” she calls as she steps around Peralta. The precinct pauses. “This is my husband, Sergeant Peralta, and my daughter, Maya. We will be eating lunch in my office. Please hold all non-emergency interruptions until after lunch.”

The door closes and the bustle of the precinct picks up but John and Daisy remain motionless. “That was…that was -” 

“Your hero...wearing a _Star Wars_ backpack,” John finishes, feeling just as dumbstruck as Daisy sounds. 

“Did it have Rey on it?” 

“I think so.” 

“That…is so… _ cool _ !”


	2. Chapter 2

Detective John Morrissey is not good at keeping secrets.

The whole concept of concealing something - concealing  _ anything _ \- makes both his palms and the back of his neck feel clammy. But it’s not like he’s an open book, or anything; he just avoids spilling the beans, so to speak, by completely avoiding human contact.

Daisy figured that out about him within the first two months of their partnership, when he accidentally broke the stupid glass figurine of a dolphin she claimed Ryan Reynolds gave to her reaching across their desks for something and promptly avoided her for the next two days until she cornered him in the break room and demanded to know what his problem was (and damn it, it  _ was _ an accident, despite Chang’s claims as having seen John  _ slam _ the stupid thing on the ground (Chang has such a weird thing for drama)). He’d blurted it out while she was mid-lecture and she’d stopped, eyes wide and blinking rapidly.

And then she’d laughed. She’d found it in a thrift store near her apartment and bought it on a whim. He’d thought weakly that maybe  _ that’s  _ why she’s constantly in financial crisis, but. It didn’t matter. She was laughing and he knew he was forgiven.

So maybe he’s really bad at keeping secrets.

Daisy’s worse.

He swears the whole precinct is on the cusp of figuring it out because of  _ her _ , and they’ve only been... _ whatever _ they are, dating, he guesses, for a month _. _ Sure, he’d been extra quiet lately (a fact Chang loudly pointed out the day before during lunch in the break room), but  _ she’s _ the one who bit Higgins’ head off right in the middle of the bustling precinct after he made some stupid disparaging comment to John in passing, and then promptly launched into an impassioned three-minute speech about just how  _ idiotic _ and  _ neanderthalic  _ Higgins’ worldviews are that didn’t end until John hissed  _ “Daisy.” _ three times. She’d stopped speaking abruptly, eyes wide as saucers on his face.

And Captain Santiago promptly called Daisy into her office.

She’s been in there for fifteen minutes now, and John’s officially freaking out. He’s already organized his emails three times and reordered his files in his bottom drawer twice, but Daisy’s still in there Chang and Higgins are giving him weird looks and he’s going to have a panic attack because oh, God, they know, Captain Santiago  _ knows _ -

He isn’t sure what it is, exactly, about the idea of Captain Santiago knowing that he and Daisy are...fraternizing...that makes him so anxious. Initially he fretted that it might make them seem unprofessional in the eyes of his captain, but -

There’s a part of him that can’t help but recall the story she told him two short months into her captain-ship.

_ I married him. _

Maybe, he thinks.

Maybe she’ll understand.

It’s not like they planned it, or anything. It was a heat of the moment thing, a rare split-second decision on his part, to protect them both from a nosy perp. They’d been walking through the park, discreetly searching for their collar, and -

And John spotted the guy glaring at them from behind a tree. He’d reached for Daisy’s hand without thinking, and when she turned to him, lips parted in confusion, he dove.

It didn’t escape his notice that she responded  _ immediately and enthusiastically _ .

To say it was awkward afterwards would be an understatement. 

But they’d sorted through it like adults (that is to say after splitting a bottle of wine), and, yeah, they finally bit the metaphorical bullet and confessed, and they’ve been going out  _ in secret _ ever since. Because the thought of Chang being involved honestly made the pit of his stomach turn and he doesn’t even want to  _ think _ about the insanely racist backwards sixties ideology Higgins will unleash on them and if today was  _ any indication _ of how Daisy would react to that -

Captain Santiago’s office door opens, and Daisy shuffles out, shoulders hunched in that ‘my captain is disappointed in me so  _ I’m  _ even  _ more  _ disappointed in me’ posture she gets, and John doesn’t even have time to make eye-contact with her before Captain Santiago is calling him into her office as well.

He starts speaking the second her door clicks shut. “Captain -”

“Have a seat, detective.” She interrupts, and her tone is unreadable.

He drops into one of the chairs before her desk and the part of him that still hasn’t quite grasped the fact that he’s  _ dating Daisy Schmidt _ automatically begins building a case on all the reasons why this is Daisy’s fault.

Those thoughts dissipate when Captain Santiago pauses halfway around her desk to straighten a portrait of her husband and children hung on the wall to John’s left.

Captain Santiago settles into her chair gracefully and John automatically straightens up in his seat, mentally admonishing himself for his lack of proper posture. “Detective Schmidt was just telling me that Detective Higgins made a rather obtuse comment in the bullpen directed toward you.” She says, her gaze calm and even.

He knows his mentor well enough by now to know that it’s an invitation.

“Detective Higgins is an incredibly talented detective, ma’am -”

“John,” she interrupts, and he freezes. It’s so rare that she uses his first name. She looks at him earnestly.

He sags a little in his seat. “The guy was being an ass to me. Not - not intentionally. He’s just, y’know...a little ignorant. A  _ lot _ ignorant. And Dai- Detective Schmidt was just sticking up for me. I don’t deal well with stuff like that from people I’m supposed to work with.”

She nods slowly, and there’s a gleam in her eye he’s come to associate with her reliving memories. “You and I are a lot alike, John.” She says quietly. “Sometimes it surprises me just how similar we are.”

John smiles a little in spite of himself. It’s not every day your low-key hero says something like that. His smile falters, though, when he remembers the sharp slope of Daisy’s shoulders. “Ma’am, about Detective Schmidt -”

“Funny thing is, Detective Schmidt sometimes reminds me of my husband.” She glances at the portrait she straightened earlier, and John turns his head to look at it as well. “He used to tease me mercilessly - still does, by the way - but the second anyone took a shot at me that he sensed was not done in jest, he would get  _ so indignant _ on my behalf. It happened a  _ lot _ back when I first transferred to the Nine-Nine. Little comments about my race or my gender, you’re probably familiar. He would get so indignant, would go off on these long social justice tangents right there in the middle of the briefing room, which would totally throw my whole presentation on whatever perp I was chasing that week off. This was long before there was ever anything romantic between us, mind you.” She flashes him a small, dimpled smile. “I was lucky to have him. Our captain never would have intervened the way Sergeant Peralta did.”

“Your...your captain? Captain Holt?”

“Oh, God, no. Captain Holt had a zero-tolerance policy regarding discrimination of any kind in the workplace. We cycled through a few different captains throughout our partnership and none of them - with the exception of Holt, of course - ever stood up for me the way Jake did. The way Daisy did for you.” John swallows and nods slowly. She smiles again, and glances through her window into the bullpen. “I’ll have a word with Detective Higgins. You’re dismissed.”

He stands up feeling numb and like something monumental had just happened but he’d only caught the tail-end of it.

Captain Santiago calls Higgins into her office and closes the door. John sits down across from Daisy and they exchange a look, but before he can even get the information into a text to her, Higgins’ muffled shout echoes through the precinct. Everyone pauses and stares at Higgins’ back - he’s on his feet and shouting, pointing wildly and violently into the bullpen - and beyond him at Captain Santiago, who merely looks at him, hands folded primly before her and the corners of her mouth just barely tugged down in a frown. John winces at the muffled obscenities Higgins throws at Captain Santiago, and he hears Daisy’s chair roll loudly across the floor as she springs out of it. But before Daisy can even get around the desk, Higgins is storming out of the office. He snatches a few of his personal things off his desk, and then he’s gone.

John turns back toward Captain Santiago’s office just in time to see her closing the blinds. He feels a wave of helplessness wash over him when she closes the door.

“This is my fault,” Daisy mutters.

Part of him agrees.

But there’s a much bigger part celebrating the fact that he will  _ never  _ have to listen to Higgins complain about the lack of a white history month ever again.

Twenty minutes later, the usual midday bustle has picked back up with two exceptions - Higgins’ desk, and Captain Santiago’s office. From his peripheral, he can see Daisy glance up at the window between her and the latter every few seconds, and he knows she’s trying to decide whether or not she should go in there and talk to their captain and apologize - for everything, maybe - but luckily the decision is made for her when the elevator doors open.

Captain Rosa Diaz lumbers out, offering little more than a barked “ _ move _ ” to the beat cop that unintentionally crosses her path. She goes directly into Captain Santiago’s office without even glancing at anyone between, flinging the door open and slamming it shut again without bothering to knock. John and Daisy stare after her, as if her sudden and abrupt entrance left a physical wake, and somehow Daisy looks even  _ more _ guilty than before.

But it’s nothing compared to the look on her face when Sergeant Jake Peralta himself appears at the top of the staircase, looking both windswept and winded at once. He jogs into the bullpen, flashing a brief and distracted smile at John and Daisy as he passes. John turns in time to see Peralta open Captain Santiago’s door, turn toward the couch she has pushed against the wall beneath her window, and just before her door closes, he hears Peralta softly say “ _ Ames _ .”

None of them have emerged by the end of the day, and John feels so tiny and insignificant standing behind his desk with his bag slung over one shoulder, staring at the way her office lights make her closed blinds glow. He’s debating the merits of staying late to be here when her office door finally opens, if for no other reason than it’s  _ so rare _ to see more than one of the original Nine-Nine squad together in one place like this, but -

All the other detectives have already gone home, and the night crew is hovering nearby, impatiently clearing their throats and shuffling their feet and sighing, waiting for him to clear out and make room for them. And Daisy’s already halfway out of the bullpen, paused and turned back toward him, eyebrows raised expectantly. John casts one more glance at Captain Santiago’s closed door before hurrying to join her.

They bump shoulders in the elevator, and even though his stomach is still in knots, the smile she’s gazing up at him with makes him feel a little better. Captain Santiago has Captain Diaz and Sergeant Peralta, and he has Daisy.

Everything will be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

“Schmidt.”

Daisy Schmidt squeezes her eyes shut for a brief moment and opens them again, fingers never pausing in their consistent echoing drum beat against the underside of the bench she sits on. John Morrissey sits two feet to her right and has been tossing annoyed glances her way every five seconds since they sat down together ten minutes ago. People dressed in various neutral-colored pantsuits pass them, all of them carrying briefcases, all of them speaking on the phone or to each other in stiff monotone, and it drives her absolutely crazy. She hates them. She hates this stupid stiff skirt that would be impossible to run in (should she need to run), she hates this stupid stuffy button-down shirt her sister let her borrow, she hates these dumb pinching heels and this stupid tight bun on the back of her head down near the nape of her neck like the one Captain Santiago wears sometimes -

“Schmidt.”

\- and she  _ hates  _ that Higgins bailed at the last second and left her and John to testify  _ alone  _ in court. But the thing she hates more than all of that is the stupid, brilliant attorney they’re about to face off against, the one whose name is a mere whisper in the halls of the precinct, the one that strikes fear in the hearts of cops everywhere because you just don’t get to be the Best Damn Defense Attorney in Brooklyn without metaphorically slaying a few cops in the courtroom on your way to the top.

Sophia Perez.

Just  _ thinking  _ the name makes Daisy’s heart beat unevenly.

It’s not like she’s never testified in court before. She has. Plenty of times. But she’s somehow always been lucky enough to dodge the Perez train that she’s seen careen out of control too many times to count. She’s always been lucky.

Until today.

“ _ Schmidt. _ ”

“ _ What _ ?” She snaps, head whipping to the left so quickly she’s fairly certain she’s just given herself whiplash.

John glares at her and reaches to straighten his tie. “D’you mind not drumming? I can’t concentrate on the case.”

The file is balanced precariously on his knees, and Daisy arches an eyebrow disparagingly at him. “Yeah, well, drumming keeps me calm.”

She sees a muscle in his jaw jump, and his fingers are still fumbling over the knot. “ _ Okay _ , I find it really distracting, so would you just -”

She begins drumming even harder, knocking her knuckles against the wooden surface beneath them so hard it’s almost painful, all while maintaining fierce eye-contact with John. His mouth snaps closed and his eyes narrow, and his hands dart from the knot on his tie over his throat to the edges of the casefile still spread across his knees. Really, she wants to feel bad - this is John’s second time facing Sophia, and the first time he did it he actually had a full-blown panic attack (first one she’d ever seen him have and oh, man, she’s never felt quite so helpless than she did in that moment) - but it’s really hard considering she feels like she’s now on the verge of one herself. She has to move, or else the panic will overtake her and she’ll end up hyperventilating in a janitor’s closet like he did.

“You’re so immature.” He hisses.

“You’re so uptight.” She hisses back mockingly.

“We’re in a government building, could you just -”

The rest of his biting retort is lost beneath a sudden, curious ringing in her ears. All of her energy is suddenly focused on the man she’s just spotted over John’s shoulder coming down the hallway toward them, suit jacket unbuttoned, tie loosened around his neck, and hands buried in his pockets. Sergeant Jake Peralta is the image of casual calm in the midst of the bustling courthouse; the exact opposite of the way she feels in that moment.

“Sergeant Peralta!” Daisy says loudly, cutting John off mid-sentence. She springs to her feet just as John whips around on the bench, and when Jake spots them, he grins.

“Hey, guys!” He says when he’s within earshot. From the corner of her eye, Daisy sees John tuck the casefile into the back pocket of his briefcase and stand, wiping his palms on his pants, but she’s too busy beaming and shaking Jake’s hand to truly note his nervous posture. “What’re you guys doing up here?”

“We’re supposed to testify for the Belvin case,” Daisy says, squeaky and breathless as Jake shakes John’s hand. She winces and inhales deeply through her nose when Jake looks back at her with a slightly-raised chin.

“Oh, yeah, Amy told me about it the other night. Seems like a pretty straight-forward assault with a deadly weapon charge.” He raises an eyebrow and glances between the two of them. “What’s the deal?”

“It’s just that...he’s hired the best DA in Brooklyn.”

Jake stares at her blankly.

“Sophia Perez.” John says quietly, leaning toward Jake as though he is afraid that saying the name too loudly would summon her from the shadows.

Jake’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. “So- ...Sophia Perez? You’re testifying against a perp who hired Sophia Perez?”

“Uh -”

“Jake?” An unfamiliar voice rings out from behind Jake. Jake spins on his heel as John and Daisy lean to look around him; a woman with long, shiny brown hair in a sharp pantsuit and Louis Vuitton heels is staring, mid-stride toward a courtroom. She’s got a coffee cup in one hand, a briefcase hung around her elbow, and in her other is a cell phone. She lets the hand holding her phone fall loosely to her side, and she smiles and chuckles in a breathless, unsure way.

“Sophia! Sophia Perez! What a surprise!” Jake exclaims loudly.

Daisy feels all the color drain from her face; she reaches out to grab John’s arm just to keep herself from toppling over backwards. Sophia chuckles again, this time with a bit of a nervous ring, and trots toward Jake just as Jake takes an uncertain step toward her. “Morrissey,” Daisy hisses.

“Huh?”

“Morrissey.”

“What?”

“What...what’s happening?”

Jake and Sophia embrace (Sophia carefully lifts her coffee away from Jake, as though she’s afraid he’s going to knock it out of her hand), and when they pull away a few seconds later Daisy can tell from the roundness of his cheeks - the only detail she can see in his profile from the angle at which she stands - that he’s grinning.

“Wow, I didn’t expect to run into you here!” Jake says, head bobbing excitedly.

Confusion flashes across Sophia’s face. “It’s a courthouse. I’m an attorney. Remember?”

“Right. Right. Attorney. Best Damn DA in Brooklyn.” His hands are on his hips and he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot slightly, like he can’t quite sit still.

Daisy elbows John in the side. “Seriously, what’s happening right now?” She whispers.

“How the hell should I know?” John whispers back.

Sophia’s eyes zero in on Jake’s left hand, still propped on his hip. “You got married!” She says, pointing to his ring.

Jake lifts his hand away from his hip and waves it around a little, looking like he’s trying to fight a bee off rather than display his wedding ring. “I did! Yep. I got married. To a woman! Who is my wife. Because of marriage. I’m saying a lot of words.”

That same confused look appears on Sophia’s face, but she smiles good-naturedly all the same. “What’s her name?” She asks, and something about the way she looks up at Jake - like he’s the single most interesting person in the entire building - makes Daisy despise the woman on a whole new level. And that’s really saying something, considering the woman’s name has made Daisy’s skin crawl since the moment John was able to gasp it up at her while curled up in the fetal position beside an overturned mop bucket in that janitor’s closet four years ago.

“Her name...ah, okay. This...might be awkward. I…” He heaves a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “I married Amy.”

Sophia’s face lights up. “Santiago? Your partner?”

The back of Jake’s neck is tinged pink. “Yeah,” he says, and his fingers curl over the back of his neck, almost as if he’s embarrassed to admit it. “But, listen, she and I, we didn’t...I mean…”

“Jake, I think it’s great.” Sophia beams up at him and squeezes his upper arm, just above his elbow, and Daisy swears she can see the tension drain out of his body instantaneously. “How long ago?”

“They...seem friendly,” John mutters as Jake launches into his answer. Daisy glances up at John, and he’s studying Jake and Sophia through narrowed eyes. “Should we call Captain Santiago?”

Daisy turns back to Jake, who is now flicking through what she can only assume are pictures of Maya and Benji due to the  _ ooh _ ’s and  _ ahh _ ’s and  _ aw-how-cute _ ’s coming from Sophia. She’s just about to tell John to make the call when Sophia’s phone starts beeping obnoxiously in her hand.

“Oh, damn,” Sophia mutters, glaring down at her phone. “I gotta get in there,” she looks back up at Jake and smiles, and Daisy swears there’s a wistful edge to it all. “It was so good seeing you, Jake.”

“Wait, wait, before you go, there are some people I want you to meet.” Jake turns and gestures to where Daisy and John are standing, and Daisy knows she’s got that deer-in-the-headlights look John teases her for sometimes. “This is Detective Daisy Schmidt and Detective John Morrissey. They’re detectives over at Amy’s precinct, ironically enough. They’re testifying against your client in a few minutes.”

Sophia nods slowly, a knowing smile lilting the corners of her lips. “Right! I remember seeing your names on the court documents. Nice to put a face to the names before we get in there!”

She reaches out to shake Daisy’s hand and Daisy lets her without thinking and almost immediately regrets it because Sophia squeezes her fingers so tightly that the ring she wears around her middle finger cuts harshly into her index and ring fingers. Sophia releases her hand, and she automatically reaches to rub the shallow indents off of her index finger.

“Go easy on ‘em, Sophia,” Jake says with a wink as Sophia shakes John’s hand.

“I will! But it’s not like you’ll need it. This is definitely a slam-dunk for you guys. I mean, c’mon, the evidence list goes on for a mile! Open and closed.” She rolls her eyes and smiles warmly at them, and Daisy feels herself smiling back in spite of herself. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you two in there! Jake,” she reaches out and touches his arm again, flashing a small, secret smile up at him. “See you!” She waves.

They all watch her leave, Daisy and John with slightly-agape mouths, Jake with an easy smile on his face. For just a moment, none of them speak. But before she can stop it, a laugh comes bubbling up from the center of her chest. “Can I hug you?” She asks Jake, voice quivering.

He smiles uncertainly and shrugs, and that’s all the invitation she needs to fling her arms around his neck. He stumbles backwards and grunts, clearly surprised by her enthusiasm, but his hands land against her back and she really honestly thinks she can die happily because she’s hugging her hero and  _ he’s hugging her back _ .

“Have you testified against her before or something?” John asks as Daisy pulls back.

Jake’s face is tinged with pink and he moves to rub the back of his neck again. “Um, yeah, we, uh...we kind of...dated? For a few months?”

Daisy feels her insides freeze. From the corner of her eye she can see that John’s mouth is wide open; she’s never seen her partner so flabbergasted in her life. But she can’t even take the time to enjoy it because her hero just admitted that he once dated an attorney.

“But...but -” John stutters.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Believe me, I got a lot of crap for it back then. We both did, actually. It didn’t work out, y’know, for obvious reasons.”  _ No shit, _ she thinks,  _ a cop and an attorney? It’s like fire and ice. _ She’s about to voice her thought when she sees movement in his left hand and when she glances down, he’s twisting his wedding ring around his finger with his thumb. The words die in her throat. “She’s super nice, though,” he says, drawing her attention back up to his face. He’s grinning now, looking marginally more at ease, and Daisy feels her stomach unclench. “Go kick ass in there, guys.”

They watch him walk away, both rooted to the spot until he’s around the corner and out of sight. “That was...a lot.” John says slowly, still staring after Jake.

Daisy blinks a few times before shaking her head, squaring her shoulders (not unlike the way Jake did just minutes earlier), and elbowing John in the side until he turns to face her. “We can do this.” She says firmly, meeting his gaze evenly.

He nods and clenches his jaw. “It’s a slam-dunk. Even the DA says so.”

She grins, and he grins back. “Let’s go kick some ass, Morrissey.”

“Right behind you, Schmidt.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was  _ supposed _ to be a routine drug bust.

The phrase keeps running through John’s mind, trailing along at the end of a long train of thought that can only be loosely described as a stream of consciousness. He sits alone in the waiting room of Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, bent at the waist, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely before him.

It was  _ supposed _ to be.

His breath comes softly but doesn’t quite fill his lungs, leaving him feeling empty and unsatisfied, and yet, somehow, unable to draw the next breath. He curls his right hand into a fist and covers it with his left, feeling the vague tingling in his arms of barely-restricted frenetic energy. He really wants to punch his own palm.

_ Supposed _ to be.

He still sees her the way he did that morning - leaning back against the counter in the break room, blueberry muffin in hand, eyes practically dancing above a dimpled smile as she listened to Sergeant Jacobsen rave about the newest yoga spot he’d found. He remembers the denim jacket she’d worn beneath her vest - the way the sleeve kept catching in the velcro, how he’d helped her get it unstuck with little more than an exasperated sigh and cheeky grin - how she’d picked at a loose thread in her pants in the van on the way to the location.

He wonders if anything is ever  _ supposed _ to be.

He should have walked in first. The words are grating in his mind and bitter in his throat where they stick, unspoken, blocking his airway. He should have walked in first, the way he  _ always _ does at crime scenes, because he’s the one who’s better at spotting details first, he’s the one who takes the calculated risk, he’s the one who towers at six-foot-four and wields a deep and commanding voice that booms through whatever room he’s entering Glock-first. A presence that generally terrifies whoever is on the other side of the door.

He should have gone in first. But he didn’t. And he still doesn’t know why.

He’d let Daisy kick the door in, he’d let Daisy rush inside first, and he’d let Daisy get shot. He’d heard that gunshot and seen her jerk back and when she fell all he could see was her blood, smeared across those kitchen tiles. He isn’t even sure where she got shot; one second she was on the floor gasping and the next he was being shoved into the back of a squad car by Chang. He spent the whole ride there staring blankly at the drying blood on his hands, unable to recall when or where he’d touched her or who carried her out. His knees ache, and he wonders if he’d dropped to his knees beside her or ran into something. He can’t remember. He can’t remember. He can’t even think of a list of reasons why this is entirely Daisy’s fault this time, because she did everything right and yet -

And yet, here he is. Sitting in the waiting room, alone. Chang dropped him off at the door and left to tell Captain Santiago what happened. He’d gone to the bathroom and numbly scrubbed her blood off of his hands, and then returned to sit and wait. To stare at his shoes while the tinny sounds of a crappy soap opera echo through the room. While Daisy is in surgery. His eyes feel too dry, his lungs too small, the skin of his hands too tight with dried blood, this chair too plastic and, and, what, conformed to the shape of the billions of butts that have pressed down here, ugh,  _ gross _ .

He’s just about to spring to his feet to go somewhere - he doesn’t really know where, his whole body is just itching to be anywhere but in that seat (that room, that hospital, that city, that state, that country, that  _ planet _ ) - when the doors slide open and a woman wearing ripped black jeans and a black leather jacket sporting wild black curls, dark, calculating eyes, and a scar through the eyebrow over her right eye comes blazing inside. John isn’t totally sure why, but he automatically straightens up at the sight of her.

This woman is familiar in a most terrifying way - and once again, he can’t immediately identify why. He wonders if his sudden loss of detective skills is a direct result of this whole mess.

She scans the room with such a quick, methodical, practiced ease, never lingering on any of the other eight people around him, that he can’t help but wonder how many times she’s done this before. But the moment she spots  _ him  _ she starts striding purposefully into the room. He resists the urge to get up and run when she rounds a row of empty seats barricading him from the other people sitting in the room to bee-line straight toward him.

“You Detective Morrissey?” She stops just a foot away from him and asks, and her voice is so low and gruff it almost sounds like a growl.

“Y-yes. Yes.” He nods and clears his throat. “Who are -”

“Captain Rosa Diaz.” She extends her hand to him.

And he stares. Suddenly he understands why she is familiar: she’s in three separate framed photographs in Captain Santiago’s office. “Captain...Captain?” He stutters.

She arches her scarred eyebrow, hand still extended.

“You’re...you’re. Diaz.”

“You gonna look at me like a fish all day?”

He snaps his mouth shut and quickly reaches to shake her hand. “My apologies, Captain, I -”

“First thing you need to know about me is that I don’t appreciate ass-kissing.” She interrupts, dropping harshly into the seat to his right. “So you can save it for Santiago. I know she eats that shit straight up outta you.”

John nods. “Of course. Sorry.”

Captain Diaz grunts. “Your partner still in surgery?” She asks.

Some invisible force is stopping him from turning his head to look at her directly, so he sinks back in his seat and nervously folds his hands over his lap. “Yes,” he rasps. When did his throat get so dry?

“Santiago mentioned you’d be here alone for a while. This hospital’s in my precinct, so I told her I’d come by until she can get here. She told me to tell you that she’ll be here with the rest of your precinct soon.”

John finds himself once again struggling to inhale. “Th-thank you.” He says, trying to subtly wipe his clammy palms on his jeans. “I, uh, I really...y’know, um...appreciate it.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees her glance at him. “I’m not gonna bite you, Morrissey. Relax. We can talk about stuff while you wait.”

He nods despite the fact that the last bit sounds bitten and forced, and his entire vocabulary goes flying out the window instantaneously. He’s sitting next to Rosa Diaz - Captain Santiago once told him that this is the woman who took down the Giggle Pig ring, who once punched through glass while she had a cold, who ate an entire apple with a pocket knife. The woman who helped his captain take down the  _ most evil mob boss _ in recent  _ history. _ He feels her study the side of his face for a moment, before she sighs loudly.

“Alright, I’ll go first. How long’ve you been partners with her?” She points to the double doors standing between the waiting room and the...beyond with the toe of her boot.

“Three years.” He says.

Diaz nods slowly. “This the first time one of you has gotten hurt?”

“Yeah,” the word bubbles up from somewhere in his chest, breaking across his lips, hanging crookedly in the air before him. It feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. They lapse into a weirdly tense silence. Diaz’s hands are buried in her jacket pockets and her legs are extended and crossed before her, and John finds himself resisting the urge to mimic her pose. She continues staring straight ahead, and before long, his nerves get the better of him. “Captain Diaz, can I ask you something?”

“No.” She grunts. He pinches his lips together and stares down at the floor, wishing the tiles would split apart and swallow him whole. She kicks her feet, recrosses her ankles, and snorts. “Sorry, habit. What?”

“Did you and Captain Santiago...when you were partners -”

“I’m gonna stop you right there. We partnered on a few cases. Her  _ partner _ was Peralta. Most of the time.”

“Okay, right, yeah...did you and your partner, um...did either of you ever…”

“Get hurt? Yeah. Loads. How d’you think I got this scar?” She points to the scar splitting her eyebrow. “Blade-happy freak on the subway. I was undercover, too.”

“Well, yeah, but...also. Um…”

“Get shot?”

John deflates. It’s a punch to the gut and a weight off his shoulders simultaneously; he isn’t sure how that’s possible.  And yet… “Yeah,” he says weakly.

“Sure. Yeah. Have you ever met Sergeant Boyle?”

“Um...I think he was the one who brought a dozen individual-sized crème brûlées into the precinct on Captain Santiago’s first day.”

“Christ, they didn’t tell me about that. Yeah, that’s him.” She shakes her head in a way he supposes might be fond, sinks a little lower in her seat, and crosses her arms over her chest. “A few years ago we were in this trainyard trying to catch this perp. This was a few weeks before Christmas, mind you. Boyle had this weird sad men’s cruise he was supposed to be going on. I don’t know, it was weird. Anyways, it was dark and we’d split up - Boyle was with me, and Santiago, Peralta, and Captain Holt were all on the other end of the trainyard. The plan was to flush this perp out and corner him if we needed to. The guy ended up jumping out from between two train cars when I wasn’t looking with a gun pointed right at my head. Right before he pulled the trigger, Boyle comes flying out of nowhere. Ended up taking two bullets to the ass that would have been in my forehead and my heart. The idiot saved my life.”

John nods slowly, the information falling over him in a long wave. “But he recovered,” he says finally, and Diaz arches an eyebrow. “I mean, what he did was brave -”

“He got a Medal of Valor. It was beyond brave.”

“No, right, of course,” John hunches his shoulders, suddenly even more nervous than he was when she first walked in. “I just mean that...I don’t...I don’t actually know where she...got...hit.”

Diaz lifts her chin a degree. “You’re afraid it’s fatal.” She says bluntly, and he flinches.

“I mean. Yeah.”

She nods slowly. “That makes sense. She’s important to you. You’re worried. No cop has ever felt that way before after their partner gets hurt.” She turns a little in her seat to face him. “Look, I’m not the best person to look to for comfort with stuff like this. I don’t know your partner. I’ve never met her. I mean, I’ve heard stories,” the ghost of a smile flashes across her face, and John is suddenly struck with a vision of Captain Santiago and Captain Diaz draped across a couch with glasses of red wine, chatting and laughing about the hijinks from their precincts at the end of a long work week. He files it away in his mental ‘Tell Daisy Later’ file, grinning in spite of himself. What Daisy wouldn’t give to eavesdrop on  _ those _ conversations. “But that’s only one person’s point-of-view. Or, two, I guess.”

So Captain Santiago  _ and _ Sergeant Peralta have  _ both _ talked to Captain Diaz about Daisy. John feels his fingers twitch for his phone - he’s never wanted to talk to Daisy more than that moment, just because he’s sure she’d absolutely lose her mind with excitement.

“My point is, I don’t know your partner. I barely know you. And, to be totally honest, I’m not that great with emotions. I’m the one you go to when you want cold, hard facts.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do if she’s not okay,” he blurts. Diaz’s eyebrows arch up, and he recoils slightly. He’d been fighting, working to escape the vortex of  _ bad things  _ blowing through his head and his stomach, but it’s hitting now and he can’t escape. “I just, I mean, she’s...she’s  _ good _ , okay? She’s  _ good, _ she’s my best friend, and I...I don’t…” he bends to plant his elbows on his knees and scrubs the top of his head with his fist, knowing that if he doesn’t work the energy out somehow he’s going to scream. “I can’t lose her. I can’t.”

Diaz is staring at him, but her brows are no longer halfway up her forehead. She nods slowly, and he can tell by the gentle, repetitive movement in her jaw that she’s chewing the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. She maintains eye-contact with him for a moment, an endless moment, before she looks down. “I really don’t know what to say.” She says, and he feels some part of him crumble. “All I know is that...Santiago...she said that your partner, Schmidt, is strong. And...strong people, resilient people...they don’t generally go down without a fight.”

John clenches his jaw and swallows the lump in his throat. “Yeah?” He croaks.

“Yeah.” She turns her head away for a second and clears her throat. “I don’t like talking about this with any of the dumb-dumbs from my precinct, so if I ever catch you speaking to any of them at Tactical Village, I will kill you myself with my own two hands.” She says through bared teeth. He nods quickly. She takes a deep breath through her nose and releases it slowly, turning to fixate her gaze on the ER entrance. “Back when...when Santiago and I were working the Figgis case.” She pauses, and his veins run cold. This is the one case neither he nor Daisy can ever get Captain Santiago to talk about in detail. Every time they so much as bring his name up, he practically sees the walls go up in Captain Santiago’s eyes. “There were so many times when we both wanted to give up. We were tired, man. So tired. And there were...people. Who wanted us dead. Who tried to kill us. We were tired. Peralta and Holt were on the other end of the coast and we had no contact with them or with...uh, with...with them.” She shakes her head once, just hard enough to bounce her curls, and continues. “We had no contact with them. And we were so tired of being stalked and threatened and shot at...but.” She mirrors his pose and clasps her hands before her. “But every time we came close to giving up, we’d start swinging even harder.” She pulls a face. “I’m not good at this. Sorry. What I’m trying to say is that neither of us gave up. And based on all the stories Santiago and Peralta have told me about Schmidt...I don’t think she’s the type to give up, either.”

Part of him wants to point out that there’s a big difference between potentially fighting for your life after a gunshot wound and fighting against a sadistic mob boss, but most of him is stunned silent by the fact that Diaz -  _ Rosa Diaz _ \- just humanized a case he’s spent most of his career studying. He’d memorized all the facts, knew every date and every city and every victim, but he’d never really stopped to consider the fact that the incredible detectives that took down the biggest mob boss in recent history might have once contemplated giving up. That they’d gone in blind, that they had no idea how it would end, that they might have been tired or lonely or even  _ scared. _

Like he is now.

And they made it through.

“Jimmy Figgis killed my uncle.” He says.

He’s never actually told anyone before.

Diaz whips around so fast she’s a blur; she stares at him so intensely, he’s pretty sure she’ll bore holes through his face. “He...he owed them a lot of money. He wasn’t really...a good...dude. Y’know. But he was my uncle.” He shrugs. “And he got murdered and...and I was really sad. That’s what got me interested in police work, actually. Following that case, and...and watching everything on TV. I was in college. And I was obsessed with Figgis.” He shakes his head. “I know there was a lot going on in your lives when that happened, but...it made a huge difference to me. So...thank you,” he breathes. 

Diaz stares at him for a long moment before turning her gaze forward again. “Does Santiago know?” She asks carefully.

“No.”

She’s quiet for another moment. And then… “You’re welcome.”

He guesses the conversation is over, because she leans back again and pulls a pocket knife out of her jacket pocket, the blade glinting beneath the fluorescents above them as she begins to pick at her nails. John glances at the nurse running the check-in counter; she’s staring at her computer screen blankly.

This has turned out to be a far weirder wait than he originally anticipated.

Another hour passes in semi-comfortable silence before a nurse emerges from the double doors. She approaches John and Diaz slowly, studying the clipboard in her hand, before she looks up and smiles tiredly at them. “Daisy Schmidt?”

John and Diaz both stand.

“The bullet entered low on her right side at such a perfect angle that no organs or major blood vessels were damaged. She’s going to make a full recovery.”

John can’t help it; he whoops excitedly and immediately clamps his hands over his mouth. He feels a solid thump against his shoulder, and when he glances back, Diaz is grinning at him. The nurse smiles good-naturedly when he turns back to face her.

“We got the bullet out and the wounds stitched up. She’s in a recovery holding room at the moment, but we’re going to move her up to the fourth floor once a room is prepared. We’ll be holding her for at least three days. Would you like to go see her?”

“Yes.” John says quickly. “Please.” He adds a bit more timidly.

“Right this way.”

“I’m gonna stay here and catch Santiago when she gets in.” Diaz says, lowering back into her seat. “Go.”

He practically trips over his own feet trying to catch up with the nurse, who is holding one of the doors open for him. He trails along behind her, trying to regulate his steps, because all he wants to do is blow right past her and run to Daisy’s side.

But finally, blessedly, the nurse gestures to an open doorway and when he walks inside Daisy’s feebly stirring in a hospital bed that makes her look far tinier than he’s ever seen her look in his life. Her eyelids flutter open when he sits down beside her, and her hand trembles when she lifts it off the mattress toward him. His fingers swallow her hand whole, and he can’t help but stare at how small and pale she looks beneath the blankets.

“John,” she rasps.

He isn’t sure why, but something primal roars to life inside him at the sound of her voice. He leans forward to be closer to her, subconsciously concaving his body to almost hover over her where she lays. His fingers grip her wrist a little more tightly, and he reaches up to brush a lock of her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead away. “Daisy,” he says, his voice soft.

He watches the muscles in her throat work, and her eyes briefly squeeze shut as a wave of pain washes over her. “Did...did you catch him?” She asks when her eyes open again.

“Higgins got him. I...couldn’t.”

It’s just five words, but something in her eyes fractures. He wants more than anything to fix it again, to make them dance and laugh again, the way they did just that morning, but he supposes that it’s okay for now. She’s going to be okay, so he’ll have time to do that later.

He stays with her for a long time, until she falls asleep and the nurses come in to move her up to her more permanent room on the fourth floor. He holds her hand until the bed wheels out of his reach; his arm stays extended toward her for an endless moment before dropping heavily back to his side.

He meanders back out to the waiting room, pauses in the doorway at the disorienting realization that the sun has long since set, and freezes completely when he spots Diaz sitting exactly where he’d left her hours earlier. Except there’s someone else sitting in his seat - someone with familiar long, raven hair and perfect posture.

“Captain Santiago?” He says, and the women look around at the sound of his voice.

Captain Santiago stands and straightens her blazer. “How is she?” She asks, a worried crease creating a canyon between her brows.

“She’s okay. She was awake and making stupid jokes earlier.” A smile briefly flashes across Captain Santiago’s face. “They’re moving her up to the fourth floor now. She’ll be here for at least three days.”

“That’s a relief.” She says, and he nods. She takes a step toward him and gently touches his upper arm. “Would you like a ride home, John?”

“No. Um, n-no thanks. I’m...I’m gonna stay. Here. With her.”

She purses her lips. “Okay.” She says. “That’s fair. The rest of the squad will be up here to visit tomorrow morning. Should I have one of them bring you a change of clothes?”

“Yes. Uh, please. Thank you, Captain.”

She shoots him a tight-lipped smile. “You’re welcome. Please don’t forget to eat, John. I know it’s easy to in situations like this.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

She pats his arm a few times. “Take care of yourself, detective.” He swallows thickly and she moves to grab her purse still sitting in the seat beside Diaz. “Rosa?” She asks.

“Right behind you.”

He stands rooted to the spot, watching them walk out side-by-side, and when he blinks he imagines himself years down the line doing just the same thing with some young, scared detective from a precinct he runs, and in his mind, he walks with Daisy.

The doors slide open to let the women out, and just as they slide closed, he hears Diaz say, “It was  _ exactly _ like the way Peralta used to talk about you.”

“Detective?” A voice calls behind him. His eyes snap open and he turns to find the same nurse from before trot toward him. “She’s ready for you.”

He nods slowly, shoves his hands deep in his pockets, and follows the nurse further into the hospital.


	5. Chapter 5

John is nervous.

It’s not really a new concept for him, but this is a different breed of nervousness. It’s the kind that sits deep in his soul, that wraps slimy tendrils around his joints, that makes his eyes feel dry and his ribs feel tight. It’s uncomfortable, painful, and it’s been sitting deep in his gut for the last six days.

It was the  _ not knowing _ that did it to him, the uncertainty and the shadows of doubt cast across his every waking thought like Boogey Men in the night -

He knows now, though, knows that it all worked out. And somehow, it persists.

The evidence of this is clear even now as he drums his fingers along the steering wheel and listens to Daisy talk. She’s nervous too, and he knows that without her saying the actual words, because Daisy  _ talks _ when she’s antsy, which annoyed him endlessly when they first met because he’s the exact opposite. She chatters, and he shuts down. But now, in the quiet confines of his car with a pan of still-warm lasagna balanced across her thighs and an air conditioning vent pointed down toward his left elbow, he finds it calming. Relaxing, almost.

Quite the opposite of the company he’d kept recently, when his whole world started coming apart at the seams and he couldn’t stop it no matter how hard he tried.

Daisy’s leg is jiggling beneath the pan and her eyes dart around as she talks, never staying on one object for very long. He can see her grip around the pan handles tighten and loosen rhythmically as her stream of thought ebbs and flows.

“- about  _ Spy Kids _ , can you believe that? Like, the little dude was more excited about meeting Judy than getting ice cream -”

“He’s  _ eight, _ Dee, what did you expect?”

“I dunno! For Captain Santiago’s kids to  _ not _ be obsessed with a criminal?” John’s breath catches in his throat, and Daisy shoots him an apologetic glance. “Sorry, I -”

“It all worked out, though,” he says quietly, reaching across the console to take her hand. Her tight grip around the handle loosens and her fingers intertwine with his instantly, and he sees her smile from the corner of his eye.

It’s the same hand he had a death grip around not three days previously, standing in the briefing room at the precinct, listening with bated breath to the police scanner until Captain Diaz’s voice filtered through: “ _ We’ve got ‘em, Peralta and Santiago need medics - _ ”

(“You’ve been a massive help in all of this,” Diaz says as she clips her riot helmet on. “You want in on this raid? Fair’s fair, you’ve earned a place.”

John’s gaze drifts from Diaz to the men behind her; Boyle, Jeffords, and Holt, standing like beacons in the night amongst the other beat cops, suiting up and helping Holt get the straps in the back as he says he just can’t  _ bend _ like that anymore with a quiet sigh. This squad has been his dream since college, and yet -

His gut churns at the possibilities of what they might find on that raid, and he just - he just  _ can’t _ see Captain Santiago as anything other than healthy and strong -

“N-no, I, uh -”

Diaz cuts him off with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. I get it.”)

“It did,” Daisy says gently, easing him back to reality with a squeeze to his fingers. John smiles gratefully, eyes never leaving the road.

This isn’t the first time they’ve been to Captain Santiago’s apartment. That was several months ago, when Sergeant Peralta invited them over for a surprise dinner party for Santiago (Daisy nearly combusted). They have a new wreath on the front door, one with hyper-realistic butterflies clinging to fabric roses, and as they simultaneously pause (John  _ loves  _ that about them, they both need a moment to compose themselves before knocking on someone’s front door), he thinks he can hear quiet voices inside the apartment. It’s a soft murmur, almost dream-like, and he feels a distorted wave of guilt wash over him when it stops after he knocks.

Soft footsteps approach the door, one, two,  _ three _ locks unlock (he’s pretty sure there was only one lock last time - but his memory might be failing him, he’s not sure) and then the door cracks open.

Sergeant Peralta’s face is heavily bruised from his left eye all the way up to his temple, and as he pulls the door open John notes that his body twitches in a slight, practiced way that suggests some kind of healing injury in his side. But there’s a smile, a twinkle in his eye, as he looks from John to Daisy to the pan in Daisy’s hands.

“Oh my -  _ guys! _ ” His voice is controlled, softer than usual, and it makes John unreasonably anxious. He’s only known Peralta for a few years but he  _ knows _ , beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is nothing  _ quiet _ about Jacob Peralta.

(Once. He’d seen it once. The night Higgins was fired, as he and Daisy were walking out to the car, he’d glanced back and seen them through Santiago’s office window. Santiago looked uncharacteristically small, her head bowed low. Peralta was in front of her, facing her, forehead pressed against hers and hands running up and down her arms. There had been nothing loud about that moment.)

“Hi, Sergeant Peralta!” Daisy says brightly. “We, uh, we brought you...this.” She presents the pan, which Peralta takes from her with a grin. “It’s lasagna. My Nonna’s recipe. It’s, like, stupid good.”

“You guys, this is -” Peralta shakes his head, still looking from John to Daisy to the pan of lasagna. “This is way too much.”

Daisy waves her hand dismissively. “It was no trouble, honestly,” she says.

“Still, I feel like - um, ah -” he glances over his shoulder, down the hall, where the lights seem dimmer. John thinks he can see the flashes of colors and lights from a movie playing in a darkened room dancing along the side wall over Peralta’s shoulder. “We were watching a movie, but the kids are asleep. D’you guys wanna come in?”

Daisy hesitates and casts a glance up at John, who shrugs. “Um...sure.”

“Is Captain Santiago home?” John asks quietly as he slips past Peralta.

“Yeah, yeah, Benji’s just sleepin’ on her. Y’all go to the kitchen and get comfortable, I’ll go get her. Um -” Daisy eases the pan out of his hands with a small, breathless chuckle. “Thanks, thank you, I’ll - just,”

He disappears down the hall as Daisy puts the pan over the stovetop burners and John examines the pictures on the fridge. He spots the one Ibrahim texted him about weeks ago, back before this whole nightmare started, when the name Freddy Maliardi meant absolutely nothing and John didn’t know what it felt like to contemplate what a future without his Captain might look like. Captain Santiago with Maya, probably right after Maya got her first pair of glasses. He reaches out and tentatively straightens the _J ❤ A_ magnets over the photo just as footsteps begin to approach from the hall.

John has just enough time to turn and take a step toward the table (where Daisy is already seated and watching with a big, amused grin on her face) before Captain Santiago appears in the doorway.

There are bruise-like bags under her eyes and an ugly, splotchy purple bruise along her collarbone visible beneath her tank top and she’s got those same twitching movements as Peralta when she moves the wrong way, only a little more exaggerated, like her wounds are still tender. When she hugs him, he feels the stiff folds of gauze wrapped tightly around her waist beneath the bend of his elbow. The shadow of a grimace passes over her face when she crosses behind him and hugs Daisy, and then again when she reaches for a chair. There’s something - something almost  _ protective _ in the way Peralta hovers behind her, eyes following her every move, stepping away from her only when she’s seated next to John.

“It’s good to see you, Captain!” John says, because the two-second silence following the scrape of Peralta’s chair legs along the kitchen tiles is too unnerving for him and Daisy is, for once, quiet. “Daisy made lasagna.”

Santiago smiles, and it’s soft and brilliant and John feels his nerves quiet down. “Thank you  _ so  _ much. We’ve been eating takeout for the last few days and it’s starting to get old,” she glances at Peralta, who’s grinning and nodding. “That was so thoughtful of you two.”

“Please,” John waves his hand, “it was nothing. The least we could do.”

“Thank you. For the lasagna and for everything else,” she says. “Rosa told us about everything you two did. And I can’t -” she stops, turns her head down toward the tabletop, and shakes it briefly “- can’t even  _ begin _ to tell you just how much it means to me. To us.” She reaches across the table and takes Peralta’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” John says, feeling the words stick to his throat. His eyes are starting to burn so he clears his throat and adds, “I mean, we couldn’t leave them alone with  _ Judy _ .”

Peralta perks up a little, eyes flashing in what he hopes is agreement. “Thank you! God, I couldn’t _believe_ it when they told me. What the hell was Diaz thinking?” He glances at Amy, who’s already shaking her head in exasperation. John wonders how many times they’ve already had this conversation. “Like it’s bad enough they saw her knife collection without that, that, that _punk_ teaching them _smushing_ , good grief -”

“He was actually pretty good with Maya and Benji. And they really liked him,” John says with a slow smile.

Peralta puts his free hand up between them, waving him down dismissively. “They also think Grizabella is  _ cute  _ before the end of the musical.” Santiago snorts, and Peralta’s eyes flash to her face for a brief moment before landing on John’s again, brighter than before. “What I’m saying is, they’re kids, and they don’t know what they’re even talking about, like,  _ ever _ .”

It’s easy to fall into this banter with Peralta, easy to pretend like the last six days hadn’t happened, like he and Daisy are just there for dinner once again and everything is normal. Captain Santiago is still holding Peralta’s hand but she’s smiling and chuckling (he suspects a full-blown laugh might be too painful with whatever injury she has). It almost feels good and right and normal.

“You could have  _ died _ ,” Daisy suddenly blurts.

The light, joking tone is gone instantly, and John absorbs several things at once: Santiago’s smile evaporates, but not nearly as quickly as Peralta’s. Peralta’s fingers tighten around Santiago’s hand so much that his fingertips turn bone white. Santiago’s staring at Daisy across the table, looking winded. And then there’s Daisy, who’s staring at Santiago with tears in her eyes. John’s whispered hush dies in his throat as he belatedly recognizes the crack in Daisy’s voice and the slump in her shoulders. “I-I’m sorry, I just -  _ God, _ ” she rubs the heel of her hand against her eye. “It just, it didn’t hit me until just now.”

Santiago lifts her chin slightly, her signature Worried Crease appearing between her brows. “Schmidt...I’m okay.”

“I know,” Daisy says, voice tiny and barely audible.

“I’ll be back at the precinct next week.”

“Yeah.”

“You know we wouldn’t be...here. Now. If it weren’t for you two.”

John tears his gaze away from Daisy to see Peralta nodding solemnly, gaze fixated on the table before him, grip tight as ever around Santiago’s hand. Santiago leans forward, bracing herself with a hand on the side of the table. “Daisy, I can’t even  _ begin _ to tell you how grateful Jake and I are for you staying with Maya and Benji. You protected them and you kept them safe and that - that’s the only thing we cared about.” There’s a low tremor in her voice and John squeezes his eyes shut against the possibilities.

(“ _ Get the medics - God, no, they’re in the parking lot -  _ shit _ Jake just fell, the ground is so  _ wet _ , they’re with their kids -” _

_ “They can’t all fit in the back of one ambulance -” _

_ “If you think you can separate them after what they just went through _ - _ ” _ )

“And Rosa told us how integral you were to the investigation,” she’s looking at him now, he realizes with a start. His throat feels like it’s closing up at the look on her face - the earnestness, the tiredness, the thankfulness. “You lead them right to the front door. God only knows how long we would’ve been there if it weren’t for you. Honestly, I feel like I should be making you guys food.”

“You wouldn’t want that, though,” Peralta says with a weak smile. “She’s a damn good cop, but she  _ sucks _ at cooking. It would be, like, the  _ opposite _ of a good thing.”

Santiago rolls her eyes and kicks him under the table and he laughs. It’s not as boisterous as it usually is, but that same spark is still in his eyes. John smiles.

There’s a quiet pitter-patter out in the hallway, and then a very sleepy-looking Benji appears, rubbing the sleep out of his drooping eyes with his fist. “Movie’s over,” he says, the edges of his words soft with sleep.

Benji gravitates toward Santiago, arms outstretched toward her neck, but Peralta swoops in and picks him up before he has a chance to reach her. “C’mon, buddy, I think it’s time for a nap,” Benji’s already sagging against Peralta’s shoulder, arms hanging limply down his back, and as Peralta carries him out of the room Santiago twists in her seat to watch them go.

“We just wanted to drop that off to you guys and to say hi. We’ll let you guys get back to your Saturday afternoon,” John says, glancing at Daisy. They all stand (Santiago a bit slower than usual, her grip on the table a bit harder than otherwise necessary) and when Santiago’s back is turned, John takes Daisy’s hand.

She squeezes hard and leans into his side briefly, and he smiles in spite of himself.

“I really, really don’t know how to thank you enough for everything you did for me and my family.” Santiago says. They’re in the hallway outside of the apartment and Santiago’s leaning against the door tiredly. Peralta’s voice is muffled in the back room, and Maya’s is equally as muffled when she responds to whatever he’s just said. Santiago seems drawn to it, her head turning back repeatedly with each change in tone and inflection, like she can’t wait to be near them again.

“Captain, I -” Daisy stops and clenches her jaw, and then slowly exhales. “I’m really,  _ really _ glad you’re okay.”

Her answering smile almost reaches her eyes. “Thank you, detective.”

“We’ll see you next week, Captain.” John says.

Santiago nods and waves and closes the door, and John and Daisy walk away hand-in-hand. “You think they’re gonna be okay?” Daisy asks quietly once they’ve reached the elevator.

John glances down at her, grinning at her wide eyes still a little bloodshot from that moment in the kitchen. “‘Course they will be.” He says, turning his gaze forward. “It’s Santiago and Peralta, Schmidt. They  _ always _ end up okay.”


	6. Chapter 6

The reality of this situation - and it  _ is  _ a situation - is that John Morrissey is wholly, completely, and totally in the wrong. Like, so far in the wrong that those who are in the  _ right _ can’t even see him anymore. He’s a speck on the proverbial horizon, the faintest blip at the furthest edge of the radar.

He’s  _ wrong, dammit, _ and Daisy will be  _ damned _ if he doesn’t admit it.

“I really don’t get what the big deal is,” John says in that stupid, smug, half-laughing half-exasperated tone. Daisy releases a sound akin to a growl as she paces, her dinner forgotten on the table before her, her chair practically in the next room from the force with which she’d shoved it. “It was  _ years _ ago - on my  _ second day _ -”

“But you were  _ there _ !” Daisy interrupts forcefully, and John closes his mouth - a smart move on his part, really. He’s still looking pretty exasperated but his amusement is undeniable; for a moment, she’s seized with the mental image of herself drop-kicking him right over the edge of their fifth floor fire escape. “You were there, and you didn’t tell me, so this - this is, like, borderline infidelity -”

“Oh my  _ god _ , Schmidt, would you just sit down?” She glares at him a moment longer before huffing and retreating to get her chair. John waits until she’s seated - eyeing the steak knife she snatches up warily - before leaning across the table. “I didn’t even really know what was happening at the time,” he says calmly. “It was my second day on the job and I was just some beat cop working the overnight shift. Amy wasn’t even really my sergeant at that point. I just happened to be downstairs, and Sergeant Boyle just happened to ask for my help with some of the decorations and stuff. I wasn’t even technically invited.”

Daisy narrows her eyes, and then leans forward as well. “How long have we been married?”

“Two years, four months, twenty-seven days,” John answers automatically.

“And how long have we been together?”

He’s already caught on. “Six years,” he says, the ghost of a smile twitching across his face.

“And how long have we known each other - ?”

“A decade - look, it’s not like I was intentionally keeping it a secret from you, honey! I didn’t even realize it was Jake and Amy’s wedding until earlier today, when I saw myself in that picture on her desk!”

“You’re  _ in a picture on her desk _ ?”

“ _ Barely _ ! I’m all the way in the back, at the edge of the frame - part of my face is literally cut off -”

Daisy cuts him off with a scoff.

“Babe - look, I had no idea. The picture is new, it’s not like it’s even been sitting there for very long - Charles got one for each of them as an anniversary gift - even  _ Amy _ didn’t realize I was in the picture until I pointed it out. I promise, I  _ swear _ I told you as soon as I found out.”

She scowls at him despite her melting heart, and then heaves a sigh. “You’re still taking me to their anniversary party on Saturday, right?”

From her peripheral, she can see his jaw clench and his head snap toward the refrigerator. The more detailed life calendar hangs on the back of his closet door, but they’ve got a magnetic whiteboard calendar hanging on the freezer door; on Saturday, the words _SANTIAGO-PERALTA ANNIVERSARY PARTY_ are written in his neat script.

She knows without looking that he’s actually looking one day before that, on Friday, where the words _DUE DATE_ are written in that same font, followed by so many exclamation points the whole block is practically blacked out.

“Of course I am,” he says carefully, and she’s ready to fling her plate across the dining room like a frisbee. “If, y’know…”

“If what?”

He shrinks back, eyes wide.

“If  _ what _ ?”

“If it doesn’t get cancelled ‘cause of the weather.” he says quickly. “I heard it might pour on Saturday night.”

“We have umbrellas.”

Exasperation cracks that carefully-controlled veneer of calm, but he recovers quickly. “You’re right,” he says with a nod. “And you have a due date in three days -”

“I’m legally allowed to punch you in the throat when I’m in labor.”

He snorts and claps a hand over his mouth; all at once, her rage dissipates. Within seconds they’ve both dissolved into laughter, hunched over their plates, gasping for air. Daisy smooths her right hand over the impossible roundness of her belly while wiping away tears with her left.

Slowly, they come back to themselves, and when the tears of laughter have cleared from her vision she’s greeted by the sight of her husband’s soft, affectionate expression. “You’re beautiful,” he tells her.

She arches a skeptical brow. “Even when my hormones make me crazy?”

His grin his blinding when he nods, and then he’s up on his feet, rounding the table, kneeling down at her side. His kiss is slow and chaste and his hand is broad and warm on her belly, and she feels herself melt into him. “You’re _always_ beautiful,” he murmurs when they break apart.

He helps heft her up to her feet with both hands clasped around hers, and stays hovering by her side as she slowly, awkwardly waddles toward the living room. “Amy said she thinks she has a few spare invitations from their wedding in storage,” he says off-handedly as they near the couch.

Daisy whips her head toward him, frozen on the spot. “Did you -”

“She’s gonna get it framed for us.”

With a quiet, satisfied sigh, Daisy tilts her head to the side, letting it rest against John’s shoulder. “You’re the best.”

(Neither one of them know it yet, but the framed invitation ends up holding a doubly special meaning; Amy hand delivers it to them on the actual anniversary of her wedding, Jake and their kids in tow, and Daisy has to pass her hours-old newborn son to John in order to free both hands to examine it.)


End file.
